April 12th, 2006

You are currently browsing the articles from WhoisIreland Review written on April 12th, 2006.

.eu Fiasco - The Smoking Gun?

According to its own sample registrar agreement, EUrid was supposed to post the links to the domain registration sections of the registrar’s website.

Did EUrid change the rules to facilitate these bogus registrars?

In the sample EUrid registrar agreement, section 15.6 states that:

“The Registrar has the obligation to communicate to EUrid the exact reference of the part of its website where referral is made to the Domain Name Registration. EUrid has the right to record this reference on its own website so that End Users can contact the Registrar directly. EUrid also has the right to update this reference if it proves to be outdated.“

Interestingly, Bob Parsons mentions that registrars could “opt out” of having their registration url listed on the EUrid website.

Most of the bogus registrars do not have valid websites. EUrid is not operating .eu gTLD in a transparent manner. This points to EUrid colluding with these bogus registrars and betraying the interests of the citizens of the European Union.

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Written by John McCormac on April 12th, 2006 with 2 comments.
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Irish Politicians And Parties .eu Squatted?

Irish politicians and political parties may have lost their .eu domains to squatters. While the Irish government has previous experience with cybersquatters, some politicians and political parties may have had problems with .eu squatting.

Political parties Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein may have lost their .eu domains to squatters. High profile Irish politicians are also in the same mess. While Bertie Ahern’s domain bertieahern.eu was registered by the government, some of the other high profile mininsters were not so lucky. PD Minister for Justice Michael McDowell and Mary Harney both seem to have had their domains registered by someone else. Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte seems to have some curious registration data on patrabbitte.eu - the organisation listed is the Irish Daily Star and the address given is that of Dail Eireann.

The London Times details other squatting problems that have dogged the bungled launch of .eu by the incompetent EUrid registry. Interestingly dublin.eu is also squatted.

Irish HosterStats Reports

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Written by John McCormac on April 12th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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EUrid Claims System Was “Fair” But Acknowleges Potential Registrar Fraud

Informationweek.com quotes EUrid’s Patrick Linden as claiming that the .eu landrush was fair and that EUrid will not take any action against potential fraudsters. More importantly Linden acknowledged that loopholes in the registrar approval process may have been exploited.

“It’s definitely possible, but then anyone is allowed to have subsidiaries. If they have ten, they have a better chance,” he admitted. “But it’s not our concern. Our job was to make registering fair, and we did that.”

It was far from fair. Linden even seems to misunderstand the meaning of the word fair. EUrid seems to be circling the wagons in attempt to avoid the fall out from their incompetent operation. The feeling among European hosters is that these fools should never have been given the contract to run .eu in the first place. They have made such a mess of the landrush that the only realistic solution is to suspend and delete all bogus registrars and their registrations.

Linden also tries to spin the story by claiming that the bogus registrars were merely “subsidiaries”. Linden also claims that EUrid will not take action against bogus registrars, prefering instead to pocket the 10K Euros that each had paid EUrid:

Nor, said Lindén, will EURid take action against companies which may have set up scores of subsidiary registrars. “We don’t plan to do anything as long as there has not been a breach of the contract each signed with us.”

So there you have it. EUrid is complicit in the great .eu landrush fraud. These people should lose the contract immediately. If they do not, it is just another example of EU corruption for which the EU and the Commission have become famous.

Irish HosterStats Reports

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Written by John McCormac on April 12th, 2006 with comments disabled.
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